


Hurt

by amyracecar



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 17:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20195773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyracecar/pseuds/amyracecar
Summary: So, a wonderful and amazing friend, Mari, asked for a one shot of Bucky listening to Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, inspired by a quote where Seb Stan mentions that he listened to NIN while getting into character. Here you go, Mari, hope it lives up!





	Hurt

Eyes sliding open, Bucky sighed deeply. Soft, flickering light danced over his metal arm as he rolled to his side, sweeping a listless gaze across his small, cozy apartment. This little room wasn’t lavish, but it was his. After the cryo chamber that had been his home for so many long years, this room felt like a palace. The hard, lumpy mattress with its threadbare sheet felt like the most luxurious feather bed, and the freedom to slip in and out of the crowds in the marketplace below was something he savored beyond any material indulgence.

Idly, Bucky considered picking up one of the many books stacked on the nightstand. The kindly old woman he rented the room from had pressed them upon him as she saw him rereading the same tattered old copy of Oliver Twist that he’d found in a dingy motel room in Turkey. Trying to learn everything about the new world that he found himself in had proven quite a task, and momentarily he experienced again the overwhelming sensation of regaining all the years that had been stolen from him.

Shining silver fingers traced over the cover of the copy of Frankenstein that he’d cringed out when he’d come across it in the pile of books. The distorted grimace on the face of the monster drawn on the cover mocked him. No, no reading tonight. The flesh hand flexed, fist balling and releasing repeatedly as he tried to shake impending memories. Not tonight. No pain was allowed on a night as soft and quietly serene as this one.

Quickly, Bucky rolled to his stomach and instead reached out to switch on the small radio with the static-tinged speaker that had come with the room. Laying back, tucking his hands under his head, he let the music fill his senses. This new music wasn’t all bad. Some of it jarred in his ears, but the lyrics spoke to him in a way that nothing from his previous life would have. Licking his lips, he dropped his eyes shut once more and tried to lose himself in the music, to maybe learn something, to alleviate for just a moment the internal terror of his own tenuous control.

The song faded and a tinny voice announced the next song in slick Romanian. Hurt. Lips quirked as Bucky settled in and opened his eyes, watching the shadows chase across the ceiling as the beginning chords of the song began. Brows furrowing, the lyrics began to bounce around in his skull.

_“I hurt myself today,_  
To see if I still feel.  
I focus on the pain.  
The only thing that’s real” 

Softly, a guitar plucked, the sound warped by the shitty radio but still like a punch to his gut. Bucky inhaled, his breath shaky as he wet his suddenly dry lips, the hand under his head beginning again the tightening and releasing.

_“The needle tears a hole,_  
The old familiar sting.  
Try to kill it all away,  
But I remember everything” 

Strong brows furrowed, his jaw clenching. Eyes clenched shut, and Bucky told himself to turn the radio off. This was not a wise choice. Faces bled into his mind, distorted with fear, screams echoed silently from across the ages, all the death, all the pain… and all created by his own hands. His own weaknesses, the inability to fight through the conditioning. Creeping dread began to worm through him again, the cold sweat sensation of knowing that the control could be lost again, with only a simple few words.

_“What have I become,_  
My sweetest friend?  
Everyone I know,  
Goes away in the end” 

More faces, more memories, and he was paralyzed by a flash of soft red hair and a smile of adoration. Then a gut wrenching vision of falling, a blonde head retreating quickly in the white cold as a scream tried to wrench from him. Convulsively, Bucky swallowed, both hands moving to clench at his sides as he wrestled for control, trying desperately to shove away the memories.

_“You could have it all,_  
My empire of dirt.  
I will let you down.  
I will make you hurt” 

Trembling, Bucky snapped his eyes open once more, vainly grasping at the moment, trying with all his might to push away the memories threatening to overwhelm him. He was not that anymore. He was stronger, he was himself again. Hydra lost, in the end. Wincing, he saw again his metal hand around a slender, aged neck. He’d broken through, but the damage had been done.

_“I wear this crown of shit,_  
Upon my liar’s chair,  
Full of broken thoughts.  
I cannot repair” 

Blinking furiously, Bucky sat up, gripping the side of the mattress as tightly as he could, trying with all his might to tether himself in the present day, not to lose himself to the wave of drowning, suffocating memory. His throat dry, he tried to swallow, knowing it was futile. How does one come through something like this without being damaged? And he was horribly damaged, he knew that. Was he irreparable?

_“Beneath the stains of time._  
The feelings disappear.  
You are someone else,  
I am still right here” 

Shaky, controlled breaths sounded heavy and frantic as he worked to bring himself back to the present day. Steve. Natasha. Even Howard’s son. He’d seen them. He’d fought them. They were so unfamiliar now, but he knew them, still. This new life was so unfamiliar but flashes of home sent him spiraling. Who was Bucky? Who had he been? Who was he now?

_“If I could start again,_  
A million miles away,  
I would keep myself,  
I would find a way” 

Stiffly, Bucky let his head fall, his tense shoulders hunching as he bit his lower lip, feeling the flesh squeeze between his teeth, ignoring the groans of the springs in the mattress he still held in a death grip. Tears dampened his lashes, threatening to slip through his clenched eyes. No. Hydra got no more of his pain or regret. Inhaling a long, shaking breath, Bucky forced each finger to relax, raising his head in a slow, controlled movement. With a grace born of decades as the Winter Soldier, he stood and stalked around the tiny, dark room, forcing himself back into control. Touching his small, humble belongings, straightening things that were already tidy, he counted slowly, forcing his breathing into a steady pattern.

As his metal finger stroked the spiraled spine of a notebook, Bucky thanked whatever god was listening that the song was over, while also committing every lyric to memory.


End file.
